Pit bulls shot after confronting jogger

Breezy (above) is about to undergo surgery after being shot by a neighbor while apparently confronting a jogger Saturday morning

TAMPA, Fla. -- Breezy, a 10-month-old pit bull, is getting ready to go into surgery at the Tampa Bay Veterinary Emergency Service. Whether he'll survive depends on exactly where a bullet ended up after hit him Saturday morning.

He was one of three pit bulls that apparently surrounded a woman as she jogged on Ridgebrook Circle in the Keystone Manors neighborhood around 7:30 a.m. A neighbor apparently saw the dogs around the jogger and confronted them, shooting at the pit bulls as they ran away.

One of the dogs, Diamond, had to be put to sleep due to the extent of her injuries. The third dog, Mama, was the only one to escape the bullets. One bullet also flew across a pond and shattered glass at a nearby home. A couple and their two children were inside at the time, but no one was hurt.

"Our dogs are not aggressive," says Lucia Adkins, who owns the dogs. "We've raised them like kids because they were raised with kids."

A family friend, Thomas Tyree, had let the dogs out into the fenced backyard when they apparently escaped through a gate at the home. He believes someone may have opened it.

"Somehow that gate was open," he says. "It shouldn't have been open because the night before, I let them out, and that gate was closed and secured."

The jogger told detectives that she didn't feel threatened by the dogs. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office says it hasn't received any calls about the pitbulls in the past. Neither has Animal Services. But neighbors say the pit bulls have escaped before and are more aggressive in a pack. They say they'd like to see owner responsibility taken.

"This isn't the first time this has happened," says owner Bob Smedley. "If I had been out here with my dogs and those dogs came over to attack my dogs, I would have shot them. And you would have done the same thing."

The case has been turned over to the State Attorney's Office.

Adkins says she believes this may be connected to anonymous, threatening letters that have been written to her about her son, who is on probation for a robbery in 2007.